The Fate of Master Sifo Dyas
by YodaBreaker
Summary: Count Dooku and Darth Sidious plot the fate of Jedi Master Sifo Dyas...after they have used him for their purposes. A missing moment story explaining how Count Dooku became Darth Sidious's apprentice & how the Grand Clone Army of the Republic came to be.
1. Dark Sith Rising

**The Fate of Master Sifo-Dyas**

_It is two years after the Battle of Naboo._

_Palpatine has firmly entrenched_

_himself into the Chancellorship_

_of the Galactic Republic. A tenuous_

_peace reigns through the galaxy._

___Meanwhile, Count Dooku has resigned_

___from the Jedi Order to protest their_

___antiquated ways. His disappearance_

___has both saddened and concerned_

___the members of the Jedi Council._

_____Unbeknownst to the Jedi, Count_

_____Dooku has joined the Sith. His_

_____master has assigned him a final_

_____sinister task to complete his_

_____initiation into that terrible cult..._

A sleek, roughly triangular ship cut through the atmosphere of Coruscant deliberately. The descent of its obsidian hull slowed as it reached a cloaked landing pad deep in the heart of the glimmering planetary city. Once its landing gear glanced upon the pad, white gaseous hisses emanated from the underside of the ship, easing it onto the urban terrestrial surface.

Regal footsteps echoed down the landing ramp as Count Dooku emerged from the dark bowels of the ship. He gazed upward, still impressed by the immensity of the secret Sith palace that remained undetected by the seemingly blind eyes of the Jedi Council.

His steps took him into into a dimly lit chamber, the end of an endlessly reconfiguring maze of twists and turns that could be stabilized only through use of the dark side of the Force. A darkly robed and slightly hunched figure greeted him there. "Kneel, Count Dooku," hissed the reptilian voice.

Dooku obeyed wordlessly. He bowed his head, raising his eyes to meet the gaze cast down at him. Only when his eyes met those of the hooded face did he utter, "What is thy bidding, my master?" in his deep, sinister, yet soothing baritone.

The slithery voice spoke again. "I have reports from Kamino that the clones are gestating well. The manipulations of their genome have stabilized, and the first wave of neonates have been spawned. They have been weaned from their nurse droids, and they already show promise in their initial combat exercises."

"How excellent, Lord Sidious!" Dooku's excitement was palpable; his eyes brightened and his wrinkled face became taut with pleasure.

"Indeed, Count. The clone army will be ready soon enough. And when it nears completion, you will be able to arise from the shadows we now inhabit. It is clear we will no longer require our long-dormant insurance policy. Eliminate it."

"But, my Lord..." Dooku's impertinent interruption was met with a harsher, firmer tone of voice from beneath the hood.

"This is your final test. Once it is completed, you will have demonstrated your devotion to the Sith arts. You will finally be worthy of a Sith name."

Dooku knew better than to cross his master a second time. "Yes, my Master. And when he is removed, I shall begin seeding foment throughout the galaxy."

"One task at a time, my apprentice. Remain focused on the needs of the present." The voice sounded as if it were shedding a scaly skin of scarcely contained contempt.

"Of course, my Master. What evidence shall you require?"

"His lightsaber would make a worthy trophy. Without it, he will not survive long in that forsaken wasteland."

"Indeed, my Master." Dooku nodded gravely in assent. "Then I shall dispatch him immediately. I shall kill that which the Jedi have believed dead for almost two years."

"Rise," croaked the gravelly voice from beneath the hood.

Dooku again obeyed, bowing slightly at the waist to the darkly robed figure before turning quickly on his heels to return to his Sith Infiltrator. Soon, nearly all connections between the Sith and the nascent clone army would be forever severed.


	2. Last Meeting With Qui Gon

Dooku's sinister ship careened noiselessly through hyperspace. The stars streaked by as Dooku contemplated the circumstances that had brought him to this point in his life. How he had warned the Jedi Council that a new menace was rising. How they refused to believe him. How they arrogantly assumed they had destroyed the Sith a millennium ago. How even the death of Darth Maul generated not even an apology to him for the obtuseness of the Jedi.

It became clear to Dooku that the Jedi had outlived their usefulness. Before the Battle of Naboo raged, Dooku sensed a darkness growing on Coruscant. A swirl of dark side energy permeated the governance of the Republic. Many members of the Jedi Order felt its uneasy energies clouding their ability to use the Force, though they insisted that only increased meditation would clarify their minds and push the dark side from them. Dooku became exasperated with this foolishness. He was the most vocal of a minority of Jedi who argued that the darkness must be actively fought against, not passively resisted, to bring it to an end.

Dooku knew that the fastest way to fight the darkness would be to embrace its influence and follow it to its source. However, no one but he was willing to take this drastic step: not his former Padawan, Qui-Gon Jinn; not the other Jedi with whom he had served; not even the Jedi Grand Master Yoda. Instead, he was left to seethe at how the impotence of the Galactic Senate endangered the people of Naboo. The Jedi's Council's insistence at not interfering with "mere politics" further demonstrated to Dooku their obstinate unwillingness to confront the obvious gathering evil.

Before leaving on his fateful mission to resolve the Trade Federation blockade of Naboo, Qui-Gon met with Dooku one last time. Dooku approved of the progress of Qui-Gon's Padawan, Obi-Wan Kenobi, and agreed that he would soon be ready to face the trials that would ensure his fitness to become a Jedi Knight. Dooku also urged Qui-Gon to join with him to explore the source of the dark side eddies in the Force once he was free of Obi-Wan. Dooku insisted that they must do so by riding the dark eddies through the Unifying Force, allowing them to predict their flow backward to their source. For Dooku, the present was but the past of the future.

Qui-Gon agreed that the dark source must be located – and quickly – but he believed strongly that they should not "lose" themselves in the dark eddies. Rather, they should embrace the Living Force fully, experiencing each moment and its attendant light or dark energy as it came to them. As the ripples in the Living Force became stronger and darker, they would know that they were moving closer to their source. This path would allow them to stay grounded in their pursuit of the darkness, remaining unclouded by both the active dark currents and the light side placidity they disturbed.

Dooku rebuked Qui-Gon, perhaps a bit too sharply. Once again, he derided Qui-Gon's devotion to the Living Force, which Dooku believed had no power to predict or control future events. Confrontation of and control over the dark energies was what was needed, not casual and ineffectual observation of them. He accused Qui-Gon of succumbing to the antiseptic foolhardiness of the other Jedi, of being unwilling to _do_ what was necessary to stop the darkness. As Qui-Gon turned away in haste to rejoin Obi-Wan, Dooku spitefully hoped that Qui-Gon's Padawan would make a stronger Jedi than Qui-Gon did. Dooku regretted that being his last remark to his former apprentice; it hardly reflected the high esteem in which he held Qui-Gon's devotion to and skill at righting wrongs throughout the galaxy.

Was it guilt over Qui-Gon's death that drove Dooku further down the dark path, then? Or was it his recognition of the ineffectiveness of Qui-Gon's methods of dealing with the Sith's darkness that spurred him to throw himself into the dark Force currents fully? Dooku realized that even now, he did not know precisely _why_ he started tracing the path of the Sith. He only knew _when_ he started down the dark path: when his friend, Sifo-Dyas, refused to join him – to provide him an anchor in the light side of the Force.


	3. Sifo Dyas Ensnared

After the death of Qui-Gon and Darth Maul, Dooku threw his consciousness deeply into contemplation of the darkness flowing through the Force on Coruscant. He sensed that these shadowy ripples in the Force often lapped against the senatorial delegation of the Trade Federation, which was instrumental in orchestrating the blockade of Naboo. Dooku used his political connections to gain access to the sniveling Neimoidians, drinking in the darkness that flowed over their simpering minds.

As he did, he felt his hatred for the complacency of the Jedi grow. It swelled within him, battering his already tattered loyalty to the Order, eroding that loyalty and washing it away into a sea of anger, resentment, and contempt. His mind became focused on his self-appointed task, to the detriment of all else. His negative emotions spilled onto his youngling learners, causing him to be removed from his instructional duties in the Jedi Temple. His growing apparent instability made him unfit for diplomatic missions. And his increasing propensities toward violence prevented him from settling offworld conflicts with aggressive negotiations.

It was for these reasons that the Jedi Council asked former Council member Sifo-Dyas to speak with Dooku. They had debated the wisdom of sending someone who shared Dooku's agitation against the nebulous dark energies gathering in the Force, who urged that _something_ be done to quell them. However, Master Windu insisted that only someone who shared Dooku's sensibilities and whose training in the Force had been fortified by partaking in the advanced meditations of the Council would have any hope of reasoning with Dooku and bringing balance back to his mind. From his development of the Vaapad style of lightsaber combat, which skated on the razor's edge between light and dark Force use, Master Windu recognized the signs that Dooku was wallowing in the dark side of the Force – and knew that unless Dooku was pulled from it, he would become submerged in it.

Sifo-Dyas agreed readily. He saw his old friend's mental and spiritual deterioration progressing all too rapidly, and he wanted to do whatever was needed to bring Dooku back to his old (if arrogant) self. So Sifo-Dyas approached Dooku to reconnect with his friend after one of Dooku's myriad administrative meetings with the Neimoidian senator named Lott Dod. Dooku found himself relieved by Sifo-Dyas's presence – he calmed Dooku, gave Dooku a harbor from the tempestuous dark Force currents that wracked his psyche. Yet Dooku had grown to fear any kind of placidity, any respite from his increasingly frantic attempts to predict the flow of the dark currents.

Nevertheless, Dooku tolerated his anxiety as he fell back into easy, familiar patterns of conversation with his friend, ambling through the halls of the back rooms of the Senate. At last, he found a sympathetic ear who might listen to his concerns about the dark Force currents, rather than dismiss them or suppress them. As their conversation passed beyond pleasantries and nostalgia, Dooku began feverishly sharing how close his meditations had brought him to the source of the dark Force emanations.

He felt that he had narrowed their source to some member of the Supreme Chancellor's staff. Someone was manipulating the Galactic Senate through the Chancery, and Dooku was intent on riding the intensifying waves of darkness to cut through every staff member there to find their origin, even if they led through the Supreme Chancellor himself.

Sifo-Dyas listened intently to Dooku's frenetic musings. He opened his mind to them, using the Force to permit Dooku's understanding to guide his. The more he opened his mind to Dooku, the more the growing decadence in the Republic became sensible. And with that sensibility came a darkening of Sifo-Dyas's own sentiments toward the Jedi Council's unswerving loyalty to the dictates of the Senate, no matter how foolish or mired in imbecility those dictates may have become.

Dooku's words percolating through Sifo-Dyas's consciousness allowed him to comprehend how the Senate had come to be stymied through the greed of the Trade Federation...how that greed was contributing to the mounting frustrations of other systems with the corruption of the Galactic Senate...and how those frustrations would lead to an anger and hatred that would rend the Republic asunder.


	4. Sifo Dyas Freed

But soon, a whisper of the Living Force called to Sifo-Dyas. Gently, it brought his contemplations away from the darkness in the Unifying Force that was overwhelming Dooku's mind. Slowly, Sifo-Dyas separated himself from the detailed vision of the future that Dooku's charisma helped him weave. Carefully, he guided Dooku back to the present moment, away from the ominous possible future that Sifo-Dyas saw even more clearly than did Dooku. However, when he asked Dooku to join in a simple reharmonizing meditation that he had learned in his time on the Jedi Council, Dooku struck out viciously against him, loosing an unexpected bolt of Force lightning coursing through Sifo-Dyas's body and knocking him to the ground.

Sifo-Dyas staggered back up gingerly but dismissed his friend's discharge of dark Force energies as the price paid by an intrepid explorer of the gathering shadows. He gripped Dooku by the shoulder, which sent a small residual charge through both of them and directed Dooku's attention back to Sifo-Dyas. Sifo-Dyas complimented Dooku on the results of his explorations. He felt the truth of Dooku's assertions that the Chancery was at the epicenter of the dark Force emanations. He also agreed that at least one member of the Chancery must be a Sith, as only a Sith could generate such intense, pervasive, and pure dark side energies.

Nevertheless, Sifo-Dyas questioned the wisdom of continuing to use such a broad search strategy that obviously carried risks of its own, pointing along his body to the lingering wisps of smoke from Dooku's unbidden Force lightning attack. He wondered if the Living Force might have been a better tool to use at that point. Surely, with only a few candidates to choose from, it would be easier to use the Living Force to discern them one at a time than to ride the increasingly dense and impenetrable dark Force currents through the Unifying Force back to their mountingly nebulous source. It seemed to Sifo-Dyas that the effort necessary to squeeze additional insights from the Unifying Force would exact too high a toll on Dooku. Indeed, he believed that it threatened to devour wholly Dooku's tenous balance in the Force, to tip him completely to the dark side of the Force.

Dooku, having recovered quickly from the shock of having nearly unintentionally electrocuted his friend, felt his rage build. He stormed at Sifo-Dyas's intimation that he was not proceeding in the most optimal way possible. His wrath frothed at Sifo-Dyas's questioning of his use of the Force, despite Sifo-Dyas's impassioned protests. His very blood boiled at how Sifo-Dyas's suggested course of action mirrored the foolhardy strategy offered by Qui-Gon what seemed a lifetime ago now.

Dooku's implacable fury caused Sifo-Dyas to back away. In vain, Sifo-Dyas pointed out the dark depths in which Dooku had submerged himself, the ways in which they had limited and perverted his behavior, and his inability to recognize the damage he did – even to his friend, just minutes ago. Regretfully, Sifo-Dyas walked away from Dooku, convinced that Dooku was on a dark path that would lead only to ruin.

As he departed, Dooku's desperate pleas echoing in his ears, he opened his mind one last time to feel the turmoil in Dooku's mind, to try one last time to steady it. He was knocked to his knees by the barbarous red-tinged visions of hooded figures, myriads of white-clad figures, limbs lost, and a burning temple, throughout which a raspy voice rang and cackled mercilessly, a distortion of one that was somehow familiar...

Sifo-Dyas closed his mind abruptly and rose from his knees slowly, shaking his head as his footfalls cascaded through the empty senatorial hallway.

As Dooku relived the simple head shake that conveyed more disappointment than an hour's worth of heated invective ever could, his keen senses detected the otherwise imperceptible shake and shimmy of his ship's exiting hyperspace. Master Sifo-Dyas would soon pay the ultimate price for his desertion that day.


	5. The Jedi Archives

Dooku piloted his Sith Infiltrator through the solar system toward his destination, running a Sith holocron between his fingers. A Sith holocron that he had taken...borrowed...stolen from the Jedi Archives. A Sith holocron that triggered his reminiscence again.

After Sifo-Dyas left him in the Senate halls, Dooku realized that there was _some_ truth to what Sifo-Dyas told him, that his method of applying the Unifying Force was meeting formidable resistance. But rather than abandon the Unifying Force, whose predictive guidance had seen him well through so many decades of Jedi activity, Dooku decided to change the way he used it. He recognized that his current method was alienating all those around him, so he took a different tack. He decided to pore through the Jedi Archives, utilizing the expertise of his friend and former confidante Jocasta Nu.

He appealed to her haughty pride in her knowledge of the ancient secrets of the Sith, persuading her to grant him access to the sealed vault of Sith holocrons. He reasoned that studying the Sith Archives would be the best way to comprehend the mysterious ways by which the dark side cloaked itself from the Jedi. She agreed and set aside a private study room for him, which he occupied for hours at a time, leaving only to eat or sleep. She had not yet heard about the Council's suspicions of Dooku. Or if she had, she exercised her considerable ability not to listen to then when data from the outside world conflicted with her understanding of the order of the universe.

At first, she acted as the embodiment of a persnickety stickler for regulations that nearly all members of the Jedi Order knew the head librarian to be. She supervised his researches tenaciously, tracking each holocron that Dooku examined...for how long he looked at it...what data he accessed on it...forcing him to confine his studies to holocrons containing relatively innocuous Sith legends and credos to avoid raising suspicion. He hid his rageful impatience at her micromanagement beneath a smooth veneer of obsequious obedience and flattery.

Fortunately, his ploy bore fruit within a few weeks. After having Dooku consistently stroke her considerable ego for what may have been the first time in decades, she became increasingly lax with him, eventually allowing him to take Sith holocrons for study without formally checking them out or having them scanned by the security droids. This lack of oversight gave him unfettered and unchecked access to the darkest secrets of the Sith present in the Jedi Archives. The more he studied the ways of the Sith, the more he allowed his consciousness to absorb their malevolent teachings, the more he felt compelled to approach the source of the dark Force currents rather than rip through it by the sheer force of his mediations.

Dooku became intrigued by the Sith doctrines and how they seemed prophetic about the current stagnation in the Galactic Republic. As he clutched a particular Sith holocron, Dooku came to understand that the Sith believed in the use of power as a means toward attaining perfection. The destruction that followed in their wake resulted in the imperfection of others, not from an inherent wish to destroy. The Sith ensured that each life remained strong, rather than allowing weakness and idiocy to corrupt the Force and the life within it.

A heretical thought took root in Dooku's mind. Perhaps the clouding of the Jedi Order's Force sight resulted not from some active dark side machinations, but from the weakness of the Jedi themselves, which was exposed by the increasing dark side Force activity!

The thought enraptured Dooku, eroding decades of training in Jedi ethics almost instantly, replacing it with a single maxim: perfection of the fittest. A maxim that summarized the pure kernel of Sith lore, passed down untainted for thousands of years. And with that knowledge, a flash of the Unifying Force revealed to him the identity of the remaining Dark Lord of the Sith. A Sith in the Chancery would not be satisfied as anything but its head. He would subordinate himself to no one, be the servant of nothing. The Sith Lord imust/i be the Supreme Chancellor: there was no other possibility.

But Dooku's studies convinced him to join the Sith, rather than expose them. The Sith teachings agreed with his sense of self-importance, which his Jedi discipline forced him to bury. They gave him focus, allowed him to comprehend why he had felt so stifled under the Jedi's strict codes of conduct. They liberated him, showing him a way to live to his fullest potential – to rule far more than a few mewling younglings. Yes, the way of the Sith held much greater promise for Dooku, and he would force himself into it, threatening to expose the Chancellor if he did not allow Dooku to be initiated into its secrets.

With that decision, a new equilibrium settled over Dooku's mind. Suddenly, the Unifying Force became clear for him. He no longer had to battle through waves of dark energies to understand the coming storm. Now, it unfolded before him in crystal clarity. And he was at its center. Commanding armies of men and droids. Beating the Jedi into submission. Winning whole sectors of systems to his leadership. Penetrating to the very heart of the Galactic Republic. A smile passed over his face as he leaned fatuously back in his chair, the tension of the last few months released utterly from his body.

Over the next few days, Dooku surreptitiously deleted planets from the Jedi Archives that had been mentioned in the Sith holocrons so that no one would be able to trace his movements. He also removed the Sith holocrons from the Jedi Archives so that the Jedi would be unable to harass the Sith, as they had done for millennia, nearly to the point of extinction. Once he removed the last Sith holocron from the Archives, Dooku strode purposefully toward the Chancellor's office, twisting the Sith holocron between his fingers as he left in a brazen act of defiance. Jocasta Nu never even looked up at him as he walked past, trusting him to return the holocron when he was finished with it.

The same Sith holocron worked through Dooku's fingers as he entered orbit around the planet Dagobah, soon to be the final resting place of Master Sifo-Dyas.


	6. Meeting with the Chancellor

The dagger of the Sith Infiltrator's hull sliced through the fog that passed for an atmosphere on Dagobah. Dooku's recollection guided the thrusters, the pitch and the yaw of the ship, its trajectory arcing toward an all too familiar dark side sink. A place where frightening visions visited all who traipsed through its murky depths. The last place that Sifo-Dyas was ever seen alive. Where Dooku had committed his last treachery against the Jedi for Darth Sidious.

Dooku's first treachery against the Jedi came shortly after Lott Dod arranged a meeting between Dooku and Supreme Chancellor Palpatine. Enough pleasantries and diplomatic fluffs were exchanged among them to make the meeting appear to the Neimoidian senator to be merely the meeting of like-minded political dignitaries. However, Palpatine's extension of an invitation to dine with Dooku alone in the Chancery left little doubt that the two men had much left to discuss.

Before they started the meal, Palpatine bade Dooku to join him for a stroll around the Chancellor's Office. He showed Dooku the artifacts he had gathered throughout his political career that now adorned the walls of the office, which included a bas-relief frieze recovered from Yavin 4 and the sinister-looking chalice that decorated a table on the far wall of the office. Dooku's lips drew up in a sneer as he recognized the depiction of the Jedi-Sith battle in the Great Hyperspace war, the Sith chalice with its dagger-like protrusions. Already, Dooku wondered if Palpatine foresaw what he intended to say during their dinner.

Throughout the meal, Dooku led his host through a brooding discussion about the state of the Jedi Order. Though the two men agreed that the Jedi had done much to preserve order in the galaxy, they also perceived that a certain inflexibility had crept into the order. Palpatine inquired whether Dooku had experienced any recent difficulties in his dealings with his fellow Jedi.

Dooku sensed his opening. He detailed the dark currents that had been flowing in the Force, how he had been tracing their source in ways that the Jedi Council did not approve. Palpatine's brow perked at the mention of the dark Force currents, noting that he thought the dark side had been defeated millennia ago. Dooku chuckled and said that such disingenuity was hardly becoming a Dark Lord of the Sith.

Dooku sat back with a smug, self-satisfied smile, waiting for Palpatine to respond. The seconds passed. Dooku's smugness fought for control over his face. Seconds stretched into a minute. Dooku shifted in his chair. Finally, Palpatine chuckled in return. His throaty cackles echoed throughout the Chancery, bringing the smile back to Dooku's lips momentarily.

Palpatine arose from the table and walked to one of the statues adorning his office. Dooku followed him slowly, at a distance. On the way to the statue, Palpatine gamely played along with Dooku, as if humoring a small child with a most outlandish theory. Dooku explained himself carefully, bearing Palpatine's patronizing tone gracefully.

As he reached behind the statue, Palpatine asked Dooku to whom he had told these suspicions. Dooku's eyebrow cocked, and his hand moved surreptitiously to the hilt of his lightsaber. However, the advantage that Dooku tried to gain in stealth was Palpatine's. Palpatine used the Force to pull his lightsaber from inside the statue, twist his hand away from and in front of the statue, and ignite the crimson blade before Dooku's fingers even reached his saber. Palpatine snarled that Dooku's secret would die with him that night.

Fortunately, Dooku's reflexes allowed him to grasp his own lightsaber's hilt and ignite its blue blade just in time to parry Palpatine's unexpected attack. The duelists clashed their lightsabers repeatedly, with Palpatine always pressing the attack and Dooku deftly defending himself with his precise Makashi lightsaber combat. Palpatine kept Dooku circling around the Chancellor's desk, darting left, then sliding right, then turning left again, using the desk and his Ataru acrobatics to prevent Dooku from slashing at his legs. In turn, Dooku used sharp, quick movements to deflect Palpatine's onslaught, hoping to wear Palpatine down through sheer exertion.

But Palpatine's aggressive thrusts were so demanding that Dooku did not recognize he was being lulled into stereotyped, patterned movements. Palpatine probed Dooku's defenses through vicious attack sequences as they jostled around the desk, allowing Palpatine to observe the very few weaknesses of Dooku's combat style. Palpatine honed in on Dooku's growing complacency as they moved in two dimensions. Dooku became so focused on continuing their deadly ballet along the surface of the floor that he forgot about the possibility of Palpatine launching an aerial attack against him.

Thus, when Palpatine abruptly jumped _over_ the desk entirely, clearing the tip of Dooku's blade with a meter to spare, he glanced his blade in a _shiim_ against the back of Dooku's left knee with impunity. Dooku staggered as he pivoted on his right foot in disbelief at Palpatine's surprisingly spry strike, giving Palpatine room to slice the back of his right knee, as well. Dooku fell to his knees before Palpatine in an apparent gesture of utter obeisance and fealty, his lightsaber clattering to the floor. Palpatine cackled again as he Force pulled Dooku's lightsaber into his hand, igniting it and crossing the blades of the two sabers in a scissors before Dooku's neck. The smell of ozone wafted up Dooku's nostrils as he blinked hard, awaiting his fate.

Palpatine asked Dooku why he should spare Dooku's life. Dooku reached into his pocket to produce the Sith Holocron he had taken from his last visit to the Jedi library, saying that he had brought an earnest gift for his new master. Palpatine's eyes flared in lust for the knowledge contained in the Holocron, his eyes crinkling in glee at Dooku's submission. After confirming that Dooku had used the word "master," Palpatine deactivated the lightsabers and reintroduced himself as Darth Sidious, the one who would complete Dooku's instruction in the totality of the Force. Instruction that would culminate in the eradication of the Jedi Order.


	7. Breaking with the Jedi Order

Deep in the bowels of Chancellor Palpatine's Surgical Reconstruction Center, Dooku took quickly to the teachings of the Dark Lord of the Sith. Those teachings agreed with his sense of superiority, forced him to use it to prove his mettle against Darth Sidious's ever more malicious battle exercises. Rather than being encouraged to withhold his emotions – to sublimate them – he was told to let them flow through him, build within him, guide him, and perfect him. Now, he could channel the decades worth of anger that had built inside him into a caustic, withering series of merciless strikes against anything or anyone who dared to oppose him.

And perhaps the Dooku's favorite Sith discipline was that of Dun Möch – the utter domination of an opponent's spirit by whatever means were at hand, be they spoken taunts or flying obstacles. Secretly, the old fencing instructor relished the notion of demolishing an opponent without ever igniting a blade. At last, his preeminent intellect could be used against his foes – and only his intellect. No longer would he need to resort to violence against weak-minded fools who were not worthy of his exertions. Now they could destroy themselves. Besides, though he was strong with the Force, he was growing ever more cognizant of his advancing age and the slowing effect it had on his once-lightning reflexes. Better not to chance a fight if it could be avoided; Dooku knew not how many more engagements he could survive.

As Dooku's strength in the dark side grew exponentially, Sidious recognized that Dooku would need to sever his ties with the Jedi, lest they stumble upon the Sith accidentally. Dooku concurred. He was glad to shed his commitment to the Jedi and their strictures. Nonetheless, he felt more than a mere twinge of nostalgia regarding his tenure with them. For as obtuse, limiting, and ultimately unprofitable as their doctrines were, the Order had provided him respite from the administrative duties incumbent on the Count of Serenno. They had also allowed him a measure of glory when he led the Jedi during the Battle of Galidraan, in which the fierce Mandalorians (who had often allied themselves with the Sith throughout much of their shared histories) were all but exterminated.

But now, Dooku had his chance to avenge his own slaughter of those proud warriors. He could make amends for heeding the Jedi Council's dictates then – the first of many misguided fool's errands the Council had sanctioned in the last twenty years. He could set right the grave wrong he had perpetrated on the Mandalorians. If all went well, he might even be able to repopulate the galaxy with their race in the ultimate act of repentance.

Dooku realized he was letting his thoughts race too far ahead again. One side effect of his training in Sith techniques of domination was an increase in his already considerable devotion to the Unifying Force. Sidious challenged him to peer with dark clarity into the future, to arrange events to his liking and then work backward in time to see how those events must be brought to fruition. Once again, Dooku demonstrated unusual talent in doing this, his visions often focusing on the annihilation of the Jedi Order. If the Jedi no longer existed, perhaps they would no longer haunt his dreams.

And no matter how Dooku envisioned the Jedi meeting their end, it all started with him making his formal break with them – and soon. So he steeled himself with dark side Force disruption meditations that Darth Sidious taught him and made an appointment to meet with the Jedi Council. Many of the Council members were shocked to hear from Dooku; it had been two months since he was seen conducting his researches in the Jedi Archives.

Dooku left the Holocrons in his Sith Master's care before jetting to the Jedi Temple. His regal strides down the august hallways leading to the Council's meeting place drew innumerable stares from Younglings, Padawans, and even Jedi Knights. As Dooku passed them in his simple brown Jedi cloak, innumerable whispers and hushed voices pullulated in his wake. The Jedi Masters on his route regarded him coolly, warily, but respectfully as he wound his way to the top of the spire that housed the Council chamber.

When Dooku was bidden into the center of the Council, he was permitted a brief declamation about the corruption of the Jedi Order before some of the assembled Masters attempted to interrupt him. Dooku continued over them, his low baritone forcing the other voices down into submission as he detailed the perversion of the Jedi from a vibrant body dedicated to the defense of the ideals of the Republic into a self-serving cadaver that had decayed into a twisted, unrecognizable, putrefied mass that threatened the very principles of the Republic.

When he finished, the Council was silent. Even the members who had initially piped up to defend the Jedi against Dooku's accusations recognized the kernels of truth from which the sentiments expressed in Dooku's tirade germinated. Their impotence in the face of the Sith menace confirmed that they were unable to confront – or reveal the identity of – the direst threat to their Order. Nor could they initially stop the cowardly Neimoidians from blockading the helpless planet of Naboo. Inwardly, Dooku chortled that even now, none of the Council suspected that a nascent Sith Lord spoke in their midst.

With that, Dooku resigned his commission in the Jedi Order. Though no one was completely surprised, audible gasps still escaped the lips of half of the members of the Council. He was only the twentieth member to renounce his commission voluntarily, so the assembled Masters knew they were witnessing a historic event. Following tradition, Dooku detached the cloak from his shoulders, letting it whisper to the floor before he turned around and stepped on it once with each foot before leaving the Council chambers. The Council could only stare at the empty brown cloak, lying as if the spirit that previously inhabited it had deserted it utterly, leaving it a limp and dead hulk. Just as Dooku had described the Jedi Order.


	8. Sifo Dyas Trapped

Dooku strode quickly out of the Jedi Temple, unburdened by his last tie to that fading Order and yet shattered by the finality of it. A lifetime of friendships, of camaraderie, of shared adventures. Gone. A way of life, of serving beings throughout the galaxy. Deserted. A path to understanding the mysteries of the Force. Abandoned.

Now, he was a disciple of the dark side of the Force. Proud. Strong. Merciless. Never to return to the light. To know its comforting, healing rays. NO! Dooku would not let himself backtrack. Would not let his mind dwell on the past. Would focus only on the task at hand. Impassioned. Unfettered. Victorious. The Jedi must be destroyed. And he would be the instrument of their destruction. NOW!

Upon his return to the Surgical Reconstruction Center, he ran to the death arena and unleashed his fury on wave after wave of training remotes, battle droids, and slave warriors. Dooku used shards of transparisteel, duracrete, or any other sharp or blunt material lying about in the death arena to rip them apart, then finished off the strongest of them with his lightsaber. Palpatine's hideous grin spread over his face as he watched Dooku's mindless rage being ventilated on each and every target. As he watched Dooku shred his forbidden attachments to the Jedi with his hatred.

In a matter of hours, Dooku had laid waste to the entire training armamentary that Sidious had collected over his months as Chancellor of the Republic. Sidious's cackles echoed through the shadowy chamber as he told Dooku how good it was to see him use his aggressive feelings. Dooku merely slumped down and doubled over against a wall, perspiration coating every inch of his skin, making his dark but dapper clothing cling to his aged skin. He had nothing left inside, could not utter even a grunt in response. His body gasped for oxygen, his lungs swelled and shriveled in their desperate efforts to exchange air with the environment. But at last, Dooku's mind was empty. At last, he knew peace.

For Dooku had finally experienced the the cleansing power of unadulterated hatred rushing through him. Just as Sidious had told him, it focused him, made him stronger. It brought clarity to his mind, made plain the purpose of each strike. He saw every single being, droid, and object around him. He perceived exactly what they were going to do. He anticipated their movements as if they were dancing an elaborate but predetermined choreography. He could turn that choreography against them, leading some of them to their own doom before Dooku had to do a single thing to them.

And Dooku's vision about the destruction of the Jedi Order attained further clarity. He now saw the instruments of their demise, marching in phalanxes of white and black armor. Dispersed across the galaxy on thousands of battlefronts. Surrounded by droid parts and carcasses. Orange explosions with black smoke billows reflected from their visors. If only he could see under their helmets...

It all started, inexorably, with the actions of a single Jedi. But there was no way Sifo-Dyas would be persuaded now. Not through ordinary channels, anyway. Not since Dooku stormed out of the Jedi Council chambers. No, Dooku's dark ingenuity was put to a first diabolical test. He had to consider the ways in which his Jedi _and_ Sith training could help him gain control over Sifo-Dyas. Only then could Dooku set his plan in motion so that the ruin of the Jedi could never be traced back to Dooku. Or the Sith.

So after Dooku straightened up, wicked the perspiration from himself, and returned to his dank Sith quarters to change and meditate, he crafted an encrypted, coded message for Sifo-Dyas. In it, Dooku abjectly apologized for his treatment of his old friend during their last meeting. He nearly groveled with obsequious platitudes regarding how he treasured their friendship, despite his resignation from the Jedi Order. He blatantly lied that he had to leave the Jedi because of pressures being exerted on him within and without the Order. Dooku ended the message with a plea for Sifo-Dyas to meet him at the Galactic Museum to reestablish their friendly ties, supplicating Sifo-Dyas to help him regain his mental footing in those chaotic times. Dooku laughed softly to himself as he pressed a button to send his message, baiting his trap for the Jedi.

Sifo-Dyas received the message during his routine comm check six hours later. His first shock was the identity of the sender of the message – from what Master Windu had told him, Dooku had completely severed all ties with the Jedi. Sifo-Dyas was not entirely surprised at that turn of events; he had wondered whether Dooku would be able to stay the course in the Jedi order since their last meeting. Nevertheless, he was disheartened when he heard nothing at all from Dooku – no visits, no communiques, no second-hand messages delivered from mutual friends.

And now, after all these months, a single message, with such complex encryption that Sifo-Dyas's terminal required several minutes just to decode it. The second shock around the message was that it was only text – he had been certain that Dooku would have transmitted a video message with such intense decoding requirements. It raised klaxons in Sifo-Dyas's mind – why would Dooku go to such length to keep the message contents secure?

The third and final shock was the sycophantic tone of Dooku's message. Never had Dooku seemed so desperate to make amends with him; then again, never had Dooku sent Force lightning coursing through his body. However, there was a desperation to Dooku's tone that Sifo-Dyas had never seen before. Something that seemed utterly foreign to Dooku's otherwise refined, regal bearing. It was congruent with how unbalanced Dooku's mind was during their last meeting. Nevertheless, it seemed inconsistent with the reasoned but vitriolic denunciation of the Jedi less than a day ago that Master Windu had detailed.

Sifo-Dyas was left with a terrible conundrum that the Living Force was no help in solving. Too many conflicting thoughts caromed through his head, which were accompanied by equally conflicting currents in the Living Force. Hours of meditation did not help him achieve a clearer vision of these currents. And the Unifying Force was clouded by the same dark eddies that Dooku had been so insistent on fighting during their last meeting. His Force sense was impotent, and if he made a decision on his own, he would have to use his own faculties to do it.

He recognized that he could bring the message to the Jedi Council to help him decide what to do about it. There was nothing in Dooku's message that forbade Sifo-Dyas from bringing it to the Council's attention; surely, given recent events, the Council would be eager to read it. But if Dooku had meant for his concerns to be brought to the Council's attention, would he have not done so in his meeting with them? Especially with as drastic an action as Dooku took – leaving the Jedi Order altogether, rather than struggling with it – _in_ it – to combat the darkness threatening the stability of the Republic.

Sifo-Dyas made a decision guided by his instincts, the feeling he had about Dooku's plight in his gut. He resolved that no matter how erratic his friend's behavior had been recently, he had to come to Dooku's aid. He reasoned that Dooku's servile importunateness resulted from his consternation about a matter too severe for the Jedi to handle as an order. Perhaps Dooku's researches had finally borne fruit that the Jedi Council was not willing to consider. Perhaps Sifo-Dyas's intimate knowledge of Dooku's methods and findings gave Dooku the framework he needed to share them. Yes, Sifo-Dyas would go to Dooku's aid. He would protect his friend, perhaps even bring him back to the Order.

Sifo-Dyas cast his die for Dooku. The bait was taken. The trap was slamming shut.


	9. Sifo Dyas Deceived

**Darth-Taisha:** Thank you for your praise and comments; I hope you find more intriguing thoughts as you go along.

**ofywan:** Thanks for reading! I hope to keep your interest piqued :)

* * *

Sifo-Dyas shot back a quick message to Dooku, consisting only of a date and time, using the same ciphers to encrypt it. Dooku had proposed the "where" of their meeting, Sifo-Dyas had responded with the "when." Sifo-Dyas hoped that the "why" of the meeting would become clear soon after he arrived at the Galactic Museum fourteen hours hence. 

Sifo-Dyas decided to arrive an hour early, to ensure that nothing unseemly awaited him within the museum. He strolled casually through each hall of the museum, using the Living Force to sense any untoward or unduly watchful presences, anyone who seemed to be paying just a bit too much attention to his movements. But no one seemed to be paying him any mind, not even the token security guards. If anything, his Jedi robes encouraged people _not_ to pay him any mind. Though the vast majority of the residents of Coruscant respected the Jedi, they also feared the Jedi because of their incomprehensible powers, their preternatural ability to sense the future, and their uncanny knowledge of what passed through people's minds. Most of the Coruscanti believed that if they stayed far enough away from the Jedi, their minds would remain unreadable, so Sifo-Dyas was granted a wide berth by the patrons of the museum.

Finally, with half an hour to spare, he parked himself on a bench inside the museum's atrium, across from its only entrance, and waited peacefully. He continued and deepened his meditations on the Living Force, which helped him stay focused, mindful of the present and any threats that might appear. And fifteen minutes into his meditations, he felt the overwhelming Force ripples that would only be generated by a powerful Force sensitive like Dooku. Sifo-Dyas opened his eyes and stood to greet his old friend, smiling as he strode toward Dooku.

Dooku's gaze lit up when he spied Sifo-Dyas through the crowd. He quickened his pace and _embraced_ Sifo-Dyas as they met. Sifo-Dyas could not help but startle as the folds of Dooku's cape fell along Sifo-Dyas's arms – this was the first sign of tenderness that Dooku had exhibited in at least ten years. Never mind the fact that to Sifo-Dyas's knowledge, Dooku had never embraced anyone, never let anyone violate the vacuum of half a meter of space he cultivated around himself. But there Dooku was, releasing Sifo-Dyas from a warm clasp, effusive about how happy he was to see Sifo-Dyas.

Something _had_ changed. And Sifo-Dyas was determined to figure out _what_.

The two men strode out of the museum, rendering Sifo-Dyas's surveillance efforts moot. They ambled down the glittering pathways of the upper layer of Coruscant's architecture, which were suspended in the sky by architectural legerdemain and repulsorlifts. The footfalls of Dooku and Sifo-Dyas mingled with the air blown up by millions of vehicles passing under those pathways, tracing through hundreds of stacked and staggered hoverlanes. The volume of the unending traffic dwarfed the two men, their cloaks rustling softly, in their trek to nowhere in particular.

Dooku's dulcet voice had regained its silken smoothness. No longer sounding bedraggled and desperate, he told Sifo-Dyas about his discovery of the identity of the Sith Lord. Sifo-Dyas blanched at Dooku's words, but he was not entirely surprised. The former Senator from Naboo had always instilled a vague sense of unease in Sifo-Dyas, though he could never pinpoint precisely why. After all, like most Jedi, he was at least somewhat uneasy around nearly all politicians. Their self-serving duplicity was foreign to the Jedi way of thinking.

And yet, politics made perfect cover for a Sith. A host of curiosities, oddities, and mysteries regarding the behavior of the Trade Federation and Galactic Senate were resolved for Sifo-Dyas in a stunning flash of insight. So _that_ was why the seemingly insignificant planet of Naboo had been blockaded! Why Senator Palpatine had convinced Queen Amidala to move for a vote of no-confidence in Chancellor Valorum! But how had Palpatine concealed himself from the Trade Federation viceroy Nute Gunray – of course! By using only his Sith name, by dressing as a Sith whenever they communicated. And that hooded, cackling voice Sifo-Dyas had heard when he last opened his mind to Dooku – Dooku had discerned the identity of the Sith Lord subconsciously all this time!

A small smile creased Dooku's lips as he saw Sifo-Dyas's eyes widen in understanding. And Sifo-Dyas now understood why his friend seemed possessed of an almost unnatural calm now. Dooku's laborious researches, so costly to his body and mind, had finally borne fruit! Sifo-Dyas felt a swell of pride puff his chest for his friend's accomplishment, which was all too quickly followed by a deflation of defeat as he remembered that he had doubted Dooku and his methods. But they were beyond the need for apologies. Yet Sifo-Dyas also recognized that it would be difficult to reveal the dark lord.

For even with the regents of the Trade Federation facing prosecution for their actions over Naboo, Viceroy Gunray had steadfastly refused to divulge his co-conspirator's identity to the tribunal. Who would believe him, even if he spoke the dark lord's name? To blame his invasion on a member of a long-dead evil order would have been as ludicrous as a child blaming his misbehavior on the mythical imps of Ithor. Though Palpatine likely would have...induced...Gunray's silence through other means. Threats against Gunray's family, his fortune, his power would likely be carried out, were the name of the Sith revealed outside the black vortex of their conspiracy. It was clear that Palpatine had taken pains not to be exposed.

Thus, Sifo-Dyas restively inquired as to what Dooku planned to do to stop the Sith from continuing its rule over the galaxy. Dooku replied that his designs were indeed complex, perhaps too complicated to explain with mere words. He asked Sifo-Dyas to open his mind to him, to allow Sifo-Dyas to see for himself what he was planning. By so doing, Sifo-Dyas might also spy flaws lingering in Dooku's plans that Dooku had overlooked.

Sifo-Dyas was now convinced. Dooku had returned to his somewhat grandiose but cautious self. No longer was he insisting that his way was the only way. He was _inviting_ criticism now, not running from it. _This_ was the Dooku that Sifo-Dyas knew, the Dooku he had befriended decades ago. The Dooku he had trusted with his life so many times before.

Sifo-Dyas opened his mind to Dooku. Immediately, crimson and black streaks of psychic pain felled the Jedi Master, sending him to his knees, then to the ground. _All too easy_, Dooku mused silently as he bent down to pick his friend up while sending the most horrific visions imaginable through his mind.


	10. Sifo Dyas Broken

To the casual observer, it appeared as if Sifo-Dyas had just fainted. However, losing consciousness would have been much preferable to the blinding pain hammering Sifo-Dyas's psyche, the agonies wracking his mind, the monstrous visions flooding through his consciousness – blood, dismemberment, agonized cries, corpses strewn across formerly verdant fields, entire planets laid to waste through orbital bombardments. He tried weakly to defend himself with the Living Force, but Dooku had caught him off guard. He simply could not focus for more than a couple of microseconds at a time. The Force could not obey such an abridged call, no matter how many midichlorians screamed it.

Slowly, his mental defenses buckled, overwhelmed by Dooku's psychological onslaught. Dooku used the opening of Sifo-Dyas's mind to call up his fears, marching through them as his defenses fell, making it easier for Dooku to access ever more petrifying images. Though Dooku did this for only a few seconds, Sifo-Dyas's terror stretched those seconds into hours – days – eternities. As Dooku bent down to pick up Sifo-Dyas's collapsed frame, he placed his hand on Sifo-Dyas's forehead, intensifying his contact with Sifo-Dyas's mind and the emotional torture he could perpetrate on it. _I'm sorry, old friend,_ Dooku cerebrated into Sifo-Dyas's consciousness, _but you were the only Jedi who would open your mind to me and who had sympathy with my cause_.

And yet, Dooku continued the torture. It took a substantial amount of emotional control for Dooku not to be overwhelmed by Sifo-Dyas's anguish, to continue the sequence of ever more disturbing images flashing through his mind. Yet Dooku's brief training in the Sith arts had so desensitized him to others' distress – even the distress of an old friend – that he contemplated Sifo-Dyas's wracked psyche as an object of curiosity, like a sadistic scientist who vivisects animals for study.

Finally, Dooku cerebrated another suggestion into Sifo-Dyas's mind. _This can pass, my friend, if you do what I ask._ Dooku's dulcet baritone echoed through Sifo-Dyas's mind, piercing through his grisly visions. Sifo-Dyas put up a valiant resistance at first, marshaling his remaining psychic defenses to prevent his mind from caving to Dooku's simple, seductive demand.

_Please, Master Sifo-Dyas. It is the only way to cease your agony. Do not shut me out. Keep your mind open to me and simply do what I ask._

The last shreds of Sifo-Dyas's dignity were destroyed, ripped asunder by Dooku's relentless ravishment. No being's psychological defenses could last long against such a direct assault, with the mind's own worst fears used against itself by a skillful master of manipulation. And when relief from the psychic attack was promised with such sweet words, with such a stark contrast against the terrifying thoughts and perceptions flooding about, Sifo-Dyas's mind relented to protect itself.

To ensure its survival.

No matter that one formerly called friend was the source of the terror.

That friend now promised release from the terror. _Was_ the release.

Thus did Sifo-Dyas's will fall to Dooku. His mind betrayed him, capitulating to Dooku's whims. For he could no longer close his mind to Dooku; Dooku had wedged too wide a psychic doorway with the Force. A doorway that would close only when Dooku willed it.

And Dooku's will had other plans for the mind of Sifo-Dyas.

_Thank you, my friend. Now, you will join me. You will meet my new master. And you will know peace._

Sifo-Dyas's body collapsed onto Dooku's. In turn, Dooku staggered back to his transport with his friend's body in tow, his friend's mind in bondage.

Dooku took Sifo-Dyas down to the bowels of the Sith headquarters within the Surgical Reconstruction Center. He brought the broken Sifo-Dyas into the chambers of Darth Sidious to present the Jedi Master to the Sith Lord for his approval. As Sidious listened to Dooku's account of how he subdued the Jedi Master, he expressed astonishment at how quickly Dooku had bent Sifo-Dyas's will to his own, and he was doubly surprised that Dooku did it in broad daylight and in full view of numerous passersby. A thought fleeted through Sidious's mind that he may have underestimated the strength of his new apprentice.

Dooku then described _why_ Sifo-Dyas was brought to the Sith's inner sanctum. Dooku recapitulated the plans he and Sidious had made for destabilizing the Republic. Dooku was soon to exploit his political contacts to create a Separatist movement that would break away wholly from the governance of the Republic. This movement would involve worlds rich in natural and martial resources whose departure would threaten the very sustenance of the Republic. Thus, the Republic would be forced to fight the Separatists to maintain its existence.

Dooku then proposed to use Sifo-Dyas as a decoy to order a clone army in the name of the defense of the Republic, ostensibly under the auspices of the Jedi Council. However, this clone army would receive special programming delivered to the cloners through Chancellor Palpatine himself. It would ensure that Palpatine would maintain direct control over the clones, no matter what circumstances in which the clones might find themselves.

Dooku had drafted 100 separate Battle Orders to cover all manner of combat exigencies. They would provide clones with guidance on how to respond to being captured, lost in space, subverted by foreign powers, and threatened by virulent and deadly biohazards, among other contingencies. Sidious's gaze was immediately attracted to one order in particular, buried seemingly innocuously among the rest: number 66. It provided for the immediate extermination of any Jedi in the area of the clones if they were to attempt somehow to assume control of the Republic.

A sinister grin spread across Darth Sidious's countenance as he contemplated the myriad ways in which Order 66 could be used. While Sidious gloated, Dooku noted that after Sifo-Dyas had placed the clone order, he would appear to be killed so as to ensure that the true source of the clone army could never be traced. In truth, Dooku would deposit Sifo-Dyas on a system practically uncharted by the Republic, in case his services would be required in the future. Dooku would then recruit the template for the clones himself by testing the mettle and cunning of a variety of contenders. This recruitment strategy would further confuse anyone who hoped to unravel the apparent mystery surrounding the origins of the clone army.

Darth Sidious cackled in sheer joy at Dooku's guile. He approved heartily of Dooku's strategy and insisted that he start it in motion as soon as possible. Then, with a mocking look of concern, he turned to Sifo-Dyas and wryly asked what he thought of Dooku's plan.

Sifo-Dyas could only utter a defeated grunt of despair. Through the fog of Dooku's manipulations, Sifo-Dyas still perceived that he was to be the unwitting agent of the destruction of the Republic...and perhaps even the Jedi Order. But the conduit Dooku had forced into his mind prevented him from resisting. From breaking away. From expressing anything less than grudging approval. From being anything less than the instrument of destruction of all he held dear.


	11. Sifo Dyas Enslaved

**LordKazama86:** The prologue to your story is definitely a different take on the mythos of the Sith than mine, and it's an interesting one. I'll be curious to see how it ties in to the story you're telling, and I hope you continue to enjoy my take on the unknown Jedi Master!

* * *

Sifo-Dyas may as well have had a leash attached to him as he was shuttled off to Kamino, one of the worlds that Dooku had taken care to delete from the Jedi Archives during his researches. He wanted to keep the location of the accomplished cloners based there a secret to ensure that the clone army was not activated before Dooku had enough time to organize the military might of his Separatist movement. 

When they arrived at Kamino, Dooku stayed in the cockpit of the transport and bade Sifo-Dyas to order the clone army himself, taking the specifications of the Battle Orders with him. Over short distances, Dooku's conduit into Sifo-Dyas's mind remained as strong now as if his hand were touching the Jedi Master's forehead. As if on a child's marionette strings, Sifo-Dyas exited the transport and braved the Kamino rainstorms to enter the luminescent white halls of Tipoca City, datapad concealed under his robes. Sifo-Dyas wished he could do something to alert the Kaminoans that this order was false, that it _must_ not be taken. However, every time he had so much as a stirring in his mind about acting contrary to Dooku's wishes, about taking matters into his own hands, the fears and the horrors flooded his mind once more.

Slowly, he was being conditioned to do only Dooku's bidding. To think as Dooku thought. To abandon any spark of individuality, lest his mind be battered with terrifying visions.

Much like the clones would have their independence genetically tamped down. The process of placing the order was surprisingly easy. After introducing himself falsely as a current ranking member of the Jedi Council, all that was needed was the security deposit provided by Darth Sidious, a selection of military training routines that Dooku had previously vetted, and a copy of the special Battle Orders that would ultimately make these clones Palpatine's, rather than the Republic's.

Sifo-Dyas wept inside through each step of the cloning order.

When the Kaminoans asked who the template for the clones would be, Sifo-Dyas demurred for a moment. This would be the last step. The last opportunity to stop this madness from coming to pass. The final stand he would make against the dark plans of the Sith.

As he moved to speak the words _There will be no template! Destroy this order and everything associated with it!_, he fell abruptly to his face on the floor. He could almost see Dooku's arched eyebrow in his mind as the staggering percepts of death and destruction, the acrid smell of burning flesh, the feeling of his very skin melting off whole and his nerves screaming out over every part of his body, all combined to fell him. The nearest Kaminoan bent down over him and asked if all was well. Once Sifo-Dyas's thoughts had been properly reconditioned, he stood and waved off the ministrations of his host, fobbing his collapse off as a result of intense sleep deprivation.

Which could have been entirely true. He had not slept since Dooku dragged him away from the museum. Yet another means the Sith used to ensure his compliance.

Sifo-Dyas told the Kaminoans that the clone template would be delivered later and would be recognized by carrying with him a copy of the training routines and Battle Orders to be used. The Kaminoans agreed and smiled at Sifo-Dyas as he traipsed back to the transport.

And to his ostensible death.

Sifo-Dyas slumped in the co-pilot's seat, utterly drenched from the windswept rains. Dooku no longer bothered with the restraints. He knew that Sifo-Dyas was now a broken man. A shell of the Jedi Master he used to be.

Ready for death. Aching for it.

But knowing it was not yet to come.

No mercy for his tortured mind yet.

That would have to wait until Dooku set the ship down on Kohlma, the burial moon of the planet Bogden – and home to the vicious Bando Gora cult. Prior to their journey to Kamino, Dooku had hired two of the last Mandalorian bounty hunters – Jango Fett and Montross – who had a strong mutual enmity. Their bounty was to be Komari Vosa, Dooku's former Padawan who left the order because of her growing infatuation with Dooku. She left Coruscant with four other Jedi to destroy the Bando Gora cult, but they instead destroyed her, torturing her to the point of madness and guiding her fall to the dark side of the Force. She assumed leadership of the cult by killing the two Jedi who survived the initial assaults of the Bando Gora, thus proving her devotion to the cult and to the evil its members sought to spread throughout the galaxy.

Dooku landed the transport surreptitiously at the base of the crag that housed the multi-domed monastic headquarters of the cult to await the arrival of the bounty hunters. Knowing how the Bando Gora despised any Jedi, this position would also be a fine staging point for Sifo-Dyas meet his apparent end. Dooku bade Sifo-Dyas out of the ship and toward the monastery, using him as bait to test the defenses of the cult before the Mandalorians arrived. Dooku wondered aloud what it was that impelled them to visit worlds in the midst of violent rainstorms.

Unable to release the volleys of tears he wished, Sifo-Dyas dryly thought that the fierce rainfalls compensated admirably for his shortcomings.

This last thought of Sifo-Dyas's formed a morsel of doubt in Dooku's own mind. It was as if Sifo-Dyas were still somehow able to break through the barrier Dooku had erected around him and contact the Force. Could it be that his puppet still had the capacity to reason for himself, no matter how viciously Dooku tried to stamp it out?

As Dooku wrestled with himself, Sifo-Dyas trudged up the crag toward the monastery with a fierce combination of dread, determination, and relief. At last, he would know respite from the myriad torments Dooku had forced on him over the past weeks. When Sifo-Dyas spied the main door to the monastery, he crouched down and skulked his way toward the summit of the crag. For the first time in weeks, he felt as if Dooku was allowing him a modicum of independent thought. Lest he dwell on that notion too long and risk punishment, Sifo-Dyas buried it deep within himself, under the layers of hurt and pain to which Dooku had subjected him.

But Sifo-Dyas's perception was not in error. The poisoned morsel had been metabolized in Dooku's psyche, distracting him and making his conduit into Sifo-Dyas's mind more tenuous.

For Dooku was forced to confront the depths of his depravity now, as never before. Previously, he could dismiss his maltreatment of the one man within the Jedi Order he could have still called friend as necessary for the greater good of the galaxy's denizens. The old, decadent, and corrupt Republic had to be swept away before a new, stronger, and pristine government could be installed. Dooku rationalized his abuse of Sifo-Dyas as necessary to bring that about by the only means possible. What was one man's current life and liberty when measured against the future security and safety of the entire galaxy?

Yet Dooku had disgusted himself with his conduct. He had betrayed the Order he had called home for decades. Devastated his friend's mind utterly. Violated his very thoughts. Forced him to engage in duplicity on a grand scale. And now, sentenced him to near-death in an assault that no man – not even Darth Sidious himself – could hope to escape. The litany of Dooku's sins paraded before him, mocking him. And as Dooku watched Sifo-Dyas's ascent from the cockpit of the transport, their mockery grew all the louder.

But were these thoughts worthy of a Sith Lord? Dooku's utter dominion over his friend, combined with his plans to create a new government to usurp the old Republic had drawn currents in the Force to him, suggesting a Sith name to him, even before it was bestowed on him by his master. _Tyranus_, the Force seemed to whisper to him. It was _that_ name he used to lure the bounty hunters into this most dangerous of hunts. It was _that_ name he now echoed into Sifo-Dyas's mind as the identity of his controller. It was _that_ name he was destined to assume as soon as the clone army began gestating in Kamino's watery womb.

Thus did the nascent Darth Tyranus endeavor to discard the last shreds of Dooku's noble Jedi dignity in favor of the manipulative machinations of the Sith. Finally, as Sifo-Dyas reached the stone footbridge in front of the main door of the monastery, Tyranus drove a mental saber through the very heart and spirit of Dooku. His eyes shut one last time as anything resembling a Jedi. But in his death throes, the persona of Dooku did a curious thing. Before those eyes reopened with Sith vision, as a final act of – mercy? compassion? friendship? – Dooku released his conduit into Sifo-Dyas's mind with a parting thought of _Goodbye, old friend._

Instantaneously, despite weeks of sleep deprivation and sensory overload, and aided by a sudden dump of adrenalin, Sifo-Dyas's sensorium achieved razor clarity. As the Bando Gora advance guard charged him, his lightsaber snapped into his hand and activated. With the first killing stroke, tears streamed freely from both eyes – one for himself, and one for the friend who was now truly dead.


	12. Sifo Dyas Neutralized

The pools of rain on the ground of Kohlma were tainted with blood, cauterized flesh bits, and salt water.

Sifo-Dyas had fought bravely against the onslaught of the Bando Gora, who concealed their faces behind horned skull masks to heighten the fear that they inspired in all those who faced them.

All but Sifo-Dyas. For him, their appearance was as that of a thousand wraiths, beckoning him to be one with the Force. They symbolized a liberation from the never-ending stream of horrors that his life had become.

He had only hoped that Dooku held out long enough to let him die at their hands, rather than having the Tyranus Dooku had become saving his broken body for some sinister future purpose.

Sifo-Dyas's hopes were not to be realized that day.

He had managed to cut down three members of the Bando Gora cult without having to block a single blaster shot. However, the death cries of the advance guard brought a horde of cultists streaming from the monastery. Immediately, Sifo-Dyas adopted a Shien stance to permit him to send his adversaries' blaster bolts back toward their bodies. He managed to fell four more attackers this way before the sheer number of blaster bolts overwhelmed him.

A bolt blazed a hole in the tunic atop his left shoulder, causing him to jerk around. As he spun, he caught the sight of another throng of cultists surging down from the domed parapets of the monastery. His smoldering shoulder was soon extinguished by the torrential rains, and he recognized the futility of his position.

But he was even more bewildered by the apparent free choice he had in how to deal with that futility. For the first time in weeks, he was conscious of the several possibilities of action before him. Each of them – running away from the cultists to force them to track him down, charging impetuously into the midst of the Bando Gora stronghold, using the Force to confuse their weak minds temporarily – all seemed to have his ruin as their inevitable outcome. Nevertheless, he noticed he was free to choose the method of his undoing.

Sifo-Dyas smiled wryly, appreciating Dooku's final gift to him more than he could express.

He elected to stand his ground, to let the Bando Gora come to him. Knowing a retreat would be fruitless, he decided to compel his attackers to take the territory from him. He would die as a warrior – or at least, appear to do so.

The blasters stopped for a few tense moments as the Bando Gora repositioned themselves inside the monastery, regrouping for a new kind of assault. Their red and blue eyes glowed menacingly as they all stared at him, wondering what sort of bizarre attack he was planning.

For Sifo-Dyas had deactivated his lightsaber, held it in front of him, closed his eyes, and bowed his head slightly. He called upon the Living Force in a standing meditative stance, asking it for guidance. He communed with it and supplicated it for courage and bravery.

At the first depression of a blaster trigger, Sifo-Dyas's lightsaber snapped to life again, nearly singing the cowl of his cloak. A volley of blaster shots burst toward him, targeted at all parts of his body. The Force sped his Shien blocks greatly, allowing him to return most of the shots to their originators. Over ten blasters and bodies clattered to the floor – even Sifo-Dyas's heightened Jedi hearing could not determine precisely how many – in return for a single shot passing through his right thigh.

Normally, he would have at least slumped at the impact of the blaster round, but the Force kept him erect. He deactivated his lightsaber, returned to his meditative stance, and dared the Bando Gora to try again.

They accepted the dare.

This time, Sifo-Dyas's lightsaber snapped to life just in time to windmill around violently, deflecting the flurry of blasts more effectively but wildly into the Bando Gora's monastic lair. Still, he had the pleasure of seeing a bolt crack through the skull mask of one of the frontline soldiers, who dropped along with five other cult members.

Abruptly, the wave of firing stopped again. Gutteral, confused grunts emanated from the shadows of the monastery. Apparently, no one had ever put up such a fight against them. They were impressed with Sifo-Dyas's martial skills. Especially because he could deactivate his weapon between blaster salvos and meditate. They respected him now. They would give him a warrior's death.

He stood in the rain in Shien stance, keeping his lightsaber activated now. The raindrops hissed softly along the length of the blade as the Jedi Master and the Bando Gora warriors stared each other down in a show of mutual respect.

Until the shrill voice of Komari Vosa bellowed for the Bando Gora to open fire without ceasing.

Blaster bolts bit through the fabric of Sifo-Dyas's cloak now, driving him backward. But rather than smugly stride ahead, the Bando Gora stayed in place, continuing their assault from their initial positions, despite Komari Vosa's demands for them to move forward. For Sifo-Dyas shifted into a Soresu style of combat, even more protective than the Shien style he had adopted previously, though it now deflected the blaster bolts aimlessly away from both him and his attackers.

If they would let him go out with honor, he would ensure that their lives would be spared, his deadly point having been made.

Finally, the blaster rounds found purchase in his vital systems. One bolt rent straight through his right forearm. Another tore though the left lower quadrant of his chest. Yet another penetrated his solar plexus. A final one ripped through the right side of his neck.

When the last bolt knocked Sifo-Dyas on his back, still clutching his lightsaber, the blasters fell silent, though an errant round pierced his left knee on his way down. Komari Vosa angrily ordered the Bando Gora to bring his body into the monastery. The cultists turned around and all pointed their blasters at their leader. Their feral silence communicated that this warrior's body would be allowed to be reclaimed by the elements in the best Bando Gora tradition. Disgusted, Komari Vosa stormed to the cellar of the hideout, knowing her influence was only so strong with those savages.

Thus, no one was around when Tyranus ventured out of the transport to retrieve Sifo-Dyas's inert frame. He cradled Sifo-Dyas's body in his arms on the way down the crag, and he laid the body inside a medical stasis chamber. Its slowing of Sifo-Dyas's metabolism, combined with the Jedi healing trance that Sifo-Dyas had likely started reflexively when his body was torn into by the blasters, would save him.

Sifo-Dyas slept through Tyranus leaving the transport again once the Mandalorians had arrived. He slept through Tyranus murdering Komari Vosa after Jango Fett successfully subdued her. He slept through Tyranus and Fett making a deal for Fett to serve as the clone template back on Kamino as long as his fees were paid – and he was allowed an unaltered clone for himself. He slept through Tyranus delivering Fett to the Kaminoans, though Fett's parting words to his motionless body of _Always a pleasure to meet a Jedi_ – followed by Fett spitting on his defenseless face – entered his dreams.

He slept through Tyranus unceremoniously dumping his body in a swamp on Dagobah, then taking off in the last flight that transport would ever provide, splattering Sifo-Dyas's body with mud from the engine wash.

And now, a year and a half later, Lord Tyranus descended his black, sinister, dagger-like Sith Interceptor in that same bog on Dagobah, the Force having guided him back to the exact spot he left the Jedi Master.

He wondered if Sifo-Dyas would still be sleeping there.

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_Dear reader, whether you have enjoyed reading this story from its inception or have just come across it, I implore you to review it and give me the feedback I need to be a better writer. Please feel free to tell me the good, the bad; the ugly, the sublime; and the things I need to do better - or the things I need to do more often!_  



	13. Lord Tyranus Returns

The Sith Interceptor's landing gear extended with a violent hiss into the murky waters of Dagobah, stirring the bog and its denizens for a minute or two as the ship eased itself onto its watery surroundings. The landing ramp splashed down into the bog, despite its being gently lowered into the turbid waters. At the top of the ramp, the man now known as Darth Tyranus to all but his Master back on Coruscant grimaced as he surveyed the dismal scene before him.

Before his eyes, a couple of reptilian bat-winged creatures beat their powerful wings lazily through the thick haze permeating the entire planet's lower atmosphere. Spottily along the bog's perimeter, the forms of trees that appeared as tangles of white bark and branches with no leaves rose up as long as was visible through the considerable fog. Along the limbs of those trees scurried lizards approximately a meter long, their round and rotating eyes, gracefully pointed snouts, and gently arched bodies a stark contrast to the ungainly stretches and whorls of the trees' limbs. As Tyranus peered out of the hold of the ship, he noted that all of those lizards' eyes were rotated toward him.

Lumbering on the ground were squat, two-meter long lizards with stout legs, flat bodies, rounded snouts, and forked tongues that shot out in pursuit of the multitude of crawling insects in the mud. Occasionally wrapping themselves around the lumbering lizards' legs were red, black, and yellow snakes, slithering their way toward prey that the ground lizards were too slow or unobservant to snare for themselves.

In the distance, the broad dorsal crest of a monster at least ten meters long broke the surface of the bog as it rolled surprisingly gracefully through the waters. All the while, Tyranus strained to take in the myriad sights while vainly endeavoring with a wrinkled nose to filter out the myriad stenches of the plethora of lifeforms in various stages of decomposition. On Coruscant, the dead and dying were kept tucked away in the bowels of the planet, their pungent aromas sequestered safely away from the nostrils of the more refined inhabitants. On this hinterland planet, though, life and death formed a fetid soup that constantly assaulted the olfaction of all who dared intrude in it.

Nauseated by the odor, Tyranus withdrew into the ship's hold and stretched out with the Force to make sense of the life around him. Immediately, he felt a thousand open minds working as one, each node of the mind coming from the lizards who were each peering at him from the trunks and limbs of the gnarled trees. He could almost i_feel_/i their minds processing his presence, exchanging information and percepts through the Force, joining their limited brains together to create a processing network far superior to any other non-sentient creature Tyranus had ever encountered.

Quickly, Tyranus felt the attention of that reptilian hive mind being directed toward the bog – more precisely, to the long, broad form undulating within it. Tyranus felt the creature under the murky waters probing all minds around – including his own – with the Force, using it to elicit instinctual terror in its quarry. Presumably, these Force strikes immobilized the monster's prey with fear summoned from eons of evolutionary engrams. The monster was strong with the dark side of the Force, though it practiced a far less sophisticated and effective form of it than Tyranus used. Then again, what could one really expect from an alien non-sentient?

Quickly, each node of the reptilian mind cried out in a shared agony. Instantly, each lizard's position was revealed in scintillating flashes of fright that rippled through the Force and back to the archaic mind of the bog creature. A single lizard fell from his tree perch to the edge of the bog fifty meters from the front of the Sith Interceptor, apparently stunned by the wave of induced emotion. Tyranus arched an eyebrow even as he cringed inwardly at an ancient, unformed, and unbidden memory of utter terror.

With surprising grace, the bog creature's large, dark green, pointed head lashed out of the water and grasped the fallen lizard in its mouth. However, the bog creature then coiled its meters-long neck around the lizard and dragged it under the water, rather than simply devouring the lizard in its considerable mouth with viciously pointed fangs. Tyranus followed the lizard's mind underwater, feeling pangs of asphyxiation spreading through it until it finally fell silent. Tyranus felt a new respect for the bog creature, appreciating the way in which it utterly dominated its prey and forced the lizard to submit to its will. This would be a powerful pet for a Sith lord, indeed.

But soon, the bog creature was in turn silently threatened by what appeared to be a giant bag of protoplasm inching up on it from behind. Silently, the dorsal crest of the bog creature was enveloped by the protoplasmic slug's incredible girth. Tyranus could see the struggling form of the bog creature through the translucent skin of the sea slug; the bog creature refused to go quietly into the sea slug's digestive juices. Tyranus again appreciated the bog creature's unwillingness to succumb to its inevitable fate, to struggle against death until the last possible moment.

What Tyranus could not see was the way in which the bog creature fought inside the sea slug's all-encompassing stomach. As the bog creature's eyes and ears slammed shut tightly to prevent them from being eaten away, the claws on its two-meter long arms combined with its needle-like fangs to rip apart the sea slug's three digestive membranes, each multiple centimeters thick. Soon, the sea slug's digestive juices spilled out into its body cavity, then into the waters of the bog as the bog creature burst out of the sea slug, shredding it viciously with savage flailing of its claws and jaws.

Soon, all that remained of the sea slug was a transparent, tattered epidermis that floated on the surface of the bog, under which the dorsal crest of the bog creature poked as it slithered under the water's surface. Tyranus's respect for the bog creature grew another hearty measure as he saw the erstwhile prey become the predator once more. It would be difficult for Sith alchemy to create a more perfect animal, he mused.

Tyranus also noticed that his nostrils had adapted to the planet's stench in the minutes it took him to observe the microcosm of the wildlife's cycle of life and death. He stepped further down the landing ramp, allowing his eyes to take in additional details of the planet's ecology: the small arachnids that spun ultra-fine webs whose strands could cut small animals to ribbons, the small amphibians in the bog and on its banks that killed with poisoned bites, and the meters-tall, bulbous, white, eight-legged vertical creatures that ambled around awkwardly.

Finally, his boots made contact with semi-solid ground, which was hidden underneath centimeters of turbid water. He strode toward the nearest bank of the bog, and then ignited his crimson lightsaber. With a terrific, projecting baritone, he bellowed, "Master Sifo-Dyas! I have come for you again!"


	14. The Clash of Tyranus and Sifo Dyas

**goofycaffeinatedguru**: Thank you so much for your kind words. I'm glad that this story interests you, and I'm sorry that I've taken so long between updates; I had to finish my dissertation. Hopefully, I can capture your interest once more!

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Darth Tyranus's boots sloshed across the sodden ground of the bog, water spraying up with each step. His saber's crimson blade crackled intermittently as drops of condensation fell onto it from the trees or the very air itself. As he sought his quarry, his measured pace meshed itself into the deliberate but deadly cadence of life in the swamp world.

Almost imperceptibly, a bright and shimmering point appeared in the mist. Softly it crackled as it lengthened into a bar of blue light, approaching Tyranus's position slowly. Tyranus regarded the blue bar of light and the features it revealed carefully. A man with long, black, matted hair, with an accompanying scraggly black beard, slightly longer around his mouth and caked with grime drew closer. The man's ripped and tattered cloak was coated with twigs, leaves, and dirt; both it and the clothes underneath it sported singed holes. Finally, the man stopped five meters away from Tyranus.

At last, Master Sifo-Dyas had revealed himself.

"You came back for me. How touching." The bedraggled Jedi Master's sarcasm surprised Tyranus.

"Indeed. You appear to have healed well." Tyranus's dry response failed to elicit any detectable response from Sifo-Dyas.

"No thanks to you. You could have at least left me with a medkit, a change of clothes – even a ration bar!"

"Ah, but that would have taken the fun out of it, wouldn't it?" Tyranus's blade whirled around in a menacing flourish.

Sifo-Dyas ignored the older man's taunts. "Instead, you left me for dead. You didn't even have the decency to finish the job; instead, you left me for any one of these creatures to eat me alive."

"It would seem that they failed, then."

"No. _You_ failed. You couldn't bring yourself to kill me before because you had a modicum of Jedi morality left in you. And the Chancellor still hasn't driven it from you fully. You _still_ can't murder someone you called friend."

Tyranus simply sneered at Sifo-Dyas. "You will soon know how incorrect you are about that foolish assumption."

As soon as Tyranus hissed those last words, he used the Force to speed toward Sifo-Dyas, crimson blade extended as a lance. However, Sifo-Dyas read the direction of Tyranus's charge and leaped deftly out of the way, twisting in the air and landing five meters away from Tyranus.

"Such tired tricks. I would have expected better from a Sith Lord." Sifo-Dyas glared defiantly at Tyranus, his voice hardened by a year and a half of privation.

Tyranus's eyebrow arched. He was not accustomed to being spoken to in such a disdainful manner from anyone, let alone his former puppet. Without uttering a word, he advanced slowly on Sifo-Dyas's position, his lightsaber whirling through the fog in brilliant, precise Makashi arcs.

Sifo-Dyas sneered at Tyranus's plodding progress, watching the rhythmic flight of his blade intently. The moment Tyranus drew within striking range, Sifo-Dyas jutted his blue blade abruptly out and down, catching Tyranus off guard and driving the Sith's crimson blade toward the marshy ground. "You always ensnared yourself in patterned movements, Dooku...or should I call you Tyranus, that silly name you let echo around in my head?"

As the Jedi Master's blade streaked up toward Tyranus's chest, the Sith jumped backward abruptly and beat his lightsaber roughly against his opponent's, sending the blue blade careening away from his torso. Sparks arced through the air as the water vapor between them turned to ionized plasma and ozone.

Tyranus exhaled quickly before speaking again. "Apparently, your time in this...miasma...has not _completely_ diminished your skills with a lightsaber. Nevertheless, I sense great _fear_ in you, my old friend." Tyranus punctuated that ironical last word with a determined thrust at Sifo-Dyas's seemingly unprotected belly.

But the Jedi Master was ready for the Sith's attempt at a killing stab, barely flicking his wrist to bring his blue shaft of light across his body, neatly parrying the glowing crimson column. "All too predictable, Tyranus. The fear you sense is your own – your technique has grown stale, complacen..."

Before Sifo-Dyas could finish his sentence, Tyranus brought his lightsaber to bear again with a preternaturally accelerated swoop at the other man's neck. The Jedi Master simply ducked, locking his blade against his former friend's before sweeping his foot behind Tyranus's ankles, sending the Sith Lord crashing down, back first, into the slimy ground.

Instead of bringing his saber down for a crushing blow to press his ostensible advantage, Sifo-Dyas leaped backward into the top branches of a white tree, five meters above the ground. He deactivated his lightsaber, held it in front of him, closed his eyes, and bowed his head slightly. He used the Force to assume a standing meditative stance, perceiving Tyranus's slow rise from the marsh as ripples in the web of the Force surrounding the entire planet.

Sodden earth alternately clung to and dripped from the Sith Lord's cape as he drew up to his full height. He wore an indignant expression at the disregard – and disrespect – his opponent was displaying toward him. He snarled, "You are unwise to lower your defenses!" as he tossed his saber viciously at Sifo-Dyas's legs, intending to cut his support out from under him.

Rather than cutting the Jedi Master off at the knees, however, Tyranus's blade cut uselessly through the tree limb from which Sifo-Dyas seemingly levitated the instant the saber was thrown. The Jedi Master effortlessly positioned himself on a branch of similar height on the opposite side of the tree, still meditating, still with his eyes closed tightly.

_You'll have to be less obvious than that_, the almost aerial Jedi bored into his sinister counterpart's mind. _Besides, the trees don't appreciate being violated like that. For your own sake, don't do that again._

Enraged, Tyranus retrieved his saber's hilt from the mire and cleaned it with the inner surface of his cape. With an evil glint in his eye, he activated the lightsaber and brutally cut through half of the trunk of the tree, threatening to destabilize the entire organism and send Sifo-Dyas thudding back to ground.

But the tree's voluminous, sticky sap quickly broke through the cauterization of the wound, gluing the edges together immediately. And even more curiously, a landspeeder-sized, eight-legged, vertically oriented, bulbous root detached from the tree, blinking a ring of mud-encrusted eyes near the bottom of the root for the first time at Tyranus. Slowly he stepped back as the root peeled away from its parent tree, pincers suspended half a meter off the ground starting to grind back and forth. _I warned you_, Sifo-Dyas grimly imparted to the Sith Lord's mind.


	15. The Upper Hand?

**goofycaffinatedguru**: I'm glad I could entertain you in your TV-less days; I wish I could have finished this story sooner, but I moved and started a new job, so this is the first I've been able to get back to it. Here's hoping the winter nights are treating you well!

**DarthChocoholic**: Thank you so much for being willing to comment on my story. Here's hoping that you'll be willing to do so again, even three months later.

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Tyranus backed away from the encroaching white bulb, his eyes narrowing even as his pupils dilated with excitement – or was it fear? He swung his lightsaber slowly back and forth along the creature's rim of eyes to assess how it would track his weapon's path. Its eyes remained fixed on Tyranus, immobile in their sockets. However, it altered its trajectory, heading toward Tyranus with a more deliberate (if halting) gait.

Suddenly, one of the legs closest to Tyranus reared up and stabbed downward, as if to spear the Sith Lord. Tyranus jumped backward half a meter, able to evade the preternatural speed of the bulb's leg only by calling on the Force to aid his movements. Still, he probed the bulb's defenses, its attack patterns, its movement style, using the Unifying Force to understand the creature and anticipate its future actions.

The bulb's legs, in turn, continued their blindingly fast probing and slashing attacks against Tyranus, barely admitting the possibility of a counterattack. Its sharply pointed legs created a whirlwind of mud and water that caked Tyranus's trousers and tunic. Its mindless onslaught would not admit the Force to dissuade it from its murderous course.

Nevertheless, though he was forced to retreat time and time again from the tree holding Sifo-Dyas, Tyranus soon enough noted a number of weaknesses in the creature's attacks. Their unthinking, unyielding ferocity slowed the bulb's forward progress so much that a single burst of Force speed allowed the Sith Lord to put meters of space between him and the threateningly thrashing legs of the bulb. Once that distance opened, it was closed again by Tyranus's humming crimson column of light, which sheared off the three legs of the bulb closest to him. He used the Force to recall his lightsaber's hilt to his hand right before the bulb crashed flat into the mud, its remaining legs splayed out, flailing furiously for purchase in the sodden ground.

In a single fluid motion, Tyranus leaped across the distance separating him and the bulb, landing atop the bulb and swiping his lightsaber across its entire girth. With a sickening thud, the top of the bulb fell into the mud, the squish of its sticky bloodsap unable to save it from being cleft in twain. Tyranus gazed defiantly at Sifo-Dyas, eyes narrowing as he felt the Jedi Master's thoughts percolate into his mind.

_You see? You should have listened to me,_ Sifo-Dyas taunted Tyranus through the Force. _After all, I had to learn a bit about this planet's wildlife to survive. Too bad your insipid Sith pride wouldn't let you learn a little something from the insurance policy you were sent to kill._

"Enough of your prattle, fool Jedi!" Tyranus spat from atop the bulb's dead hulk. "Your body will soon enough be fodder for your precious wildlife!" With that, he sprang at Sifo-Dyas, his mad flight only able to drive him near the foot of the tree that housed the Jedi Master.

_Oh, how quickly you forget your lessons, Dooku._ As Sifo-Dyas thought those words, another bulb detached from the tree, and Sifo-Dyas nearly floated on top of it, riding it as its eyes and legs flashed to life much more quickly through the influence of the Force.

Ordinarily, the Dark Lord would have been ready for another attack from such an opponent and would have dispatched it with ease. However, this time the bulb's movements were more deliberate, purposeful, as if the Master of the Light and the bulb had joined their consciousnesses into a single mind, working together to bring Tyranus down. Each time Tyranus lunged to hack off one of the bulb's razor-sharp legs, Sifo-Dyas flopped his belly on top of the bulb, reaching down with his lightsaber to parry Tyranus's thrusts. The deflection opened up a corridor for the bulb's legs to sail through, shearing down the length of Tyranus's tunic at least once, though failing to draw his blood. And that leg then retreated with preternatural speed before Tyranus's blade could slice through it, guided back through Sifo-Dyas's mental efforts.

_Tell me, oh Dark One, how will you ever explain to your Master that you were defeated by a walking tree stump?_ Sifo-Dyas asked through his mind as Tyranus lunged his saber vainly through the one of bulb's eyes, the bloodsap closing the wound even as it was partially cauterized by the intense heat of the lightsaber. The bulb responded to the wound by thrashing a leg out at Tyranus's body, knocking him to the ground and cutting a shallow but half-meter long gash down the length of his chest as he fought to regain control of his lightsaber.

_This is the end for you, my friend,_ Sifo-Dyas projected into Tyranus's mind as the bulb reared up two legs to impale his head and abdomen. But the wily Tyranus tucked into a ball, rolled underneath the bulb, and ended up directly under its pincers. The Sith Lord thrust his lightsaber through the bulb's maw and cut a neat and wide cross through its buccal orifice and throat. The bulb let forth a hideously distorted scream before shuddering and then becoming utterly still. The lack of anticipated motion was enough to send Sifo-Dyas tumbling off the bulb and into the mire, his cloak acquiring a fresh layer of crime as he lay half-dazed on his back and heels, as Tyranus rolled out from underneath the bulb.

With a self-satisfied smirk, Tyranus rose slowly from his crouch, covered from head to toe in brown and green muck, which had a particular affinity for his formerly gray hair. He glanced at the bulb before pushing it back with a casual flick of his wrist, sending it toppling into the earth with a satisfying splat. As the Jedi Master clambered up from the mud beneath him, assuming a defensive Soresu ready position, Tyranus smirked and casually muttered, "You were saying something about the end of you? About insipid Sith pride?

"Indeed, it will be that pride and its bearer that will put an end to your miserable existence, once and for all."


	16. Sifo Dyas Triumphant

Again, Sifo-Dyas let Tyranus take the initiative, the Jedi's sapphire blade parrying the Sith's quick, precise, rubied Makashi cuts. Slowly, Tyranus backed Sifo-Dyas toward a tree bordering the bog and crawling with the meter-long Force-sensitive lizards. The Jedi Master felt the attention of those lizards directed toward him and the Sith Lord, the violent clashing of their blades drawing the gaze of nearly all the animals with eyes in a twenty-meter radius. Sifo-Dyas also wondered what Tyranus had up his sleeve, even as his back thudded against the bark of the lizard-filled tree.

With a dramatic flourish, Tyranus slashed from left to right, as it to remove Sifo-Dyas's head from his shoulders. Sifo-Dyas anticipated the move and ducked out of the way of the stroke, stepping toward the bog on his right. _You missed,_ he bored into Tyranus's mind. _What is it that you've got against the trees of this world, anyway?_ he added grimly.

"And just what makes you think I missed?" Tyranus vociferously retorted as the top of the tree toppled toward the bog, sending a scurry of lizards into the bog and its banks. Frantically, they scrambled away from the water's edge, desperate to avoid the reach of the predators hidden under the water. Sifo-Dyas momentarily opened his mind to the lizards, joining in their group consciousness to guide them to the safest paths up the bog's shores.

But a handful of the lizards landed too close to the bog for even the Master of the Light's mental ministrations to be of use. The head of the bog monster jetted up from the surface of the waters, jaws gaping as it darted after the lizards, scooping them up in its jaws. The lizards that managed to clamber partway up the shores of the bog soon found themselves immobilized by its dark side Force probes of terror.

And those Force probes also doubled over Sifo-Dyas with fear, who was unable to sever his psychic link with the lizards' Force consciousness in time. Tyranus used the opening into Sifo-Dyas's psyche to force his own thoughts into the Jedi Master's mind. _Now, my old friend, you will see just how much I have learned about the wildlife of this planet in my short stay here._ Tyranus amplified the terror in Sifo-Dyas's mind, which slowly attracted the bog monster's attention to the Jedi's struggling frame. But once its attention had been captured, the bog monster's neck snapped toward Sifo-Dyas, meaning to make a meal of him.

However, Sifo-Dyas enacted a mental mirror through the Force, reflecting the terror being directed at him by the bog monster and Tyranus back to its sources. The bog monster shrieked in a most hideous and grating manner, its vocalizations assaulting the auditory sense organ of all organisms in a hundred-meter radius. The monster then slunk under the surface of the bog, the quickening waves and ripples lapping heartily at the bog's banks betraying the speed at which the monster fled the scene.

Almost inaudible under this cacophony were Tyranus's own cries of pain. He grabbed at his head, unable to believe that his own mental machinations were being perverted against him even as he reeled in horror at the abominable visions being forced across his mind. Sifo-Dyas staggered up, his gaze fixed on Tyranus's wracked form, continuing to turn the stream of frightening visions back onto the mind that originated it.

Abruptly, Sifo-Dyas shuttered his mind, allowing Tyranus's brain to recover from the waves upon waves of disturbing imagery that had been forced back into it. The Jedi Master regarded the Sith Lord with a measure of pity, though he still taunted Tyranus through the Force. _So, what do you think of the terror that the dragonsnake forces into the minds of its prey? Do you still think that monster a worthy pet for a Sith?_

Tyranus knew he had been bested, though he would never admit it openly. Far from withering away and decaying in the dank Dagobah climate, Master Sifo-Dyas had adapted to the bestial ways of the planet. The Jedi had come to live in harmony with the varieties of life on the planet, rather than trying to dominate it as a Sith would. He had learned to survive symbiotically instead of striving to remake the land as he saw most fit. Through every privation, the loss of all dignity bestowed by civilization's hallowing of rank and prestige, Sifo-Dyas had clung steadfastly to the light, rather than falling to the dark.

And that light had stood its ground in its battles against the Dark Lord. It had kept the Jedi Master's knowledge of the lightsaber fresh in the utter absence of a suitable dueling partner. It had kept him strong and nimble in the ways of the Force. And no matter what dark strategies Darth Tyranus attempted to break the Master of the Light, the light stood its ground. It overcame the dark, washed it out in a blazing glory. It refused to be extinguished, and its mere presence threatened to extinguish the darkness that had been festering in Tyranus for a year and a half.

But Tyranus felt Sifo-Dyas opening his mind again, creating a psychic breach through his Jedi defenses by his mockeries of the Sith lord. The darkness in him swelled at that opening, made him resolve to blow out the light by the one means that had proven itself successful in taming and dominating that light. Feeding the growing rage inside him, Tyranus attempted to take advantage of that opening in Sifo-Dyas's mind. He used his considerable mental powers to force his way into the Jedi's mind, just as he had done on Coruscant. Tyranus would make the Jedi pay for his insolence. For his unwillingness to be snuffed out so that the Dark Lord could complete his nefarious destiny.

And just as on Coruscant, Sifo-Dyas doubled over in cerebral pain, the waves of disturbing imagery flooding into his mind through the gateway he had opened time and again for Tyranus. However, this time, he had invited the Dark Lord's malign mental machinations, had goaded Tyranus into trying to overwhelm him again with the images that had enslaved him before. Slowly, Sifo-Dyas bore up under the tremendous psychic pain, his posture becoming erect again. Tyranus's eyes widened, unable to believe the resistance the Master of the Light assembled against his onslaught. The Dark Lord redoubled his efforts to dominate Sifo-Dyas's mind, hurling wave after wave of increasingly vicious and tormenting engrams into the Jedi Master's consciousness, designed to terrorize the body as much as the mind.

Yet Sifo-Dyas continued to rise, almost as if strengthened by the vile scenes Tyranus thrust violently into his consciousness. _A pity that you didn't learn the first time, Dooku._ Those words acted as a tremendous psychic reflector, mirroring the dark images away from Sifo-Dyas's mind and back into Tyranus's. Tyranus found himself unable to break the horrific circuit, held under the thrall of his own mind's baneful imagery as he collapsed to his knees.

For the first time since he levitated himself onto the branches of the tree, Sifo-Dyas spoke with his own voice to Tyranus, even as his face was obviously screwed up with great meditative effort. "You see, Dooku, your precious dragonsnake taught me many lessons about how to defeat your mental manipulations. I will never be your slave again. As you experience for yourself the horrors you forced into my mind, I will tell you how I set myself free from them forever."


	17. Sifo Dyas Explains It All

"For the first few hours after you dumped me here, I lay barely conscious in the Dagobah mud. The first thing I truly remember was the swarm of nudj around me - the tree lizards you used as bait for the dragonsnake. But they weren't interested in eating me - no, they were drawn to the Force within me.

"The nudj are apparently a species of Force-sensitive lizards. They survive this predatory environment by linking their minds together through the Force to form a giant consciousness that senses far beyond what any single nudj can. Their combined perceptive powers allow them to create a map that weaves visual, auditory, olfactory, thermal, and magnetic information into a unified tapestry that maps out hundreds of square kilometers of the planet's surface at once. In this way, they can all perceive predatory threats and move themselves to safety before the predator even knows any one nudj is there.

"Unless, of course, that predator is also Force-sensitive. That's where your beloved dragonsnake comes in: it detects the use of the Force and hones in on any concentration of Force energies it can find. However, sometimes it can't physically reach the nudj it has sensed through the Force. In that case, it reflexively uses its own type of Force power to disrupt the nudj communications network. This power seems to be dark sided in origin, as it floods the minds of all active Force users around it with horrifying, unspeakable sensations.

"Just like what you used to torture my mind into submission.

"And they work, too. When assaulted with the dragonsnake's Force blasts, the nudj either drop from the trees or freeze utterly, making them easy prey for the dragonsnake's ravenous jaws. It scoops up as many nudj as it needs to satisfy its appetite, then it dips itself back beneath the black surface of the water, swimming away to places unknown.

"Fortunately for me, the nudj crowded around me to provide a shield against the dragonsnake's Force manipulations. It was as if they could sense how vulnerable I was, and they took it upon themselves to protect me. They cloaked me under their web of Force sensations, and the first time a dragonsnake reared its ugly head toward me, over a hundred of them rolled me away bodily from the banks of the bog. Several of them sacrificed their lives to ensure I made it beyond the reach of the dragonsnake's neck, barely able to help them as I was.

"However, they could not keep me protected forever; they still had to forage for insects and moss to sustain themselves. Though they attempted to keep a rotating guard duty over me, as I regained consciousness, then strength - from the grubs and roots they pushed my way - I insisted through the Force that they go about their usual business. They had done quite a service for me, but I reasoned that their continuing presence near such a strong Force source would only make them more vulnerable to the ravages of a deeply hungered dragonsnake.

"And soon enough, my fears proved true. After regaining my strength, I wandered a bit too closely to the banks of the bog, my compliment of nudj bodyguards nearly swarming over me. Without warning, waves of horrific images flew through my mind, sending me to my knees and making me cry out with pain. The poor nudj, torn among their desire to flee, their perceived duty to protect me, and the assaultive nature of the images roiling through their collective mind, were frozen in terror and dread. I could do nothing but writhe with my compatriots, ready for the dragonsnake's strike to end us all.

"But obviously, that end never came. A behemoth sac of protoplasm called a swamp slug rose up behind the dragonsnake and devoured it whole. As the swamp slug approached, I felt the disturbing images bounce off my mind - they didn't leave me entriely, but it felt as if they were redirected from me back toward the dragonsnake. The swamp slug also detects Force usage, though it seems as attuned to the use of dark side Force powers as the dragonsnake is to the light side of the Force.

"The dragonsnake collapsed under the psychic weight of the gruesome images playing doubly back into its mind, leaving it defenseless as it slid into the swamp slug's maw. At that moment, I understood how to defeat those that would use such imagery to subjugate others. Instead of fighting it, trying to suppress it, to make it go away, I learned to embrace it - then shunt it directly back to its source.

"I realized that the use of any Force power opens the mind to any other Force user, to a certain degree. A skillful Force user with untoward desires - like you, Dooku - can widen that opening and break his or her way into the psyche of the person who first used the Force. He or she can read the first Force user's mind to the degree that it was opened to the Force in the first place, and then he or she can use that opening to take control of that mind.

"The problem is that the opening then goes both ways. The minds of both the original Force user and the one seeking to enter the original user's mind must be open for the Force to pass through. And if that original user can acknowledge - embrace - those Force currents that the other user is employing to place the disturbing images, the original user can then redirect those Force currents back through the mental opening of the other user.

"And so I quickly learned how to redirect the images the dragonsnake tried to feed into my mind through the Force right back at it. To be sure, it was difficult the first few times, and I barely walked away from one particularly ravenous dragonsnake's Force horrors. But over time, it became almost automatic, like reflexively throwing a lightsaber block or parry. And soon enough, the dragonsnakes all knew not to go near me, lest the horrors they sought to visit on the minds of their prey be returned back to them doubly, trebly, or worse!

"I tried to teach the nudj my defensive trick, to implant it into their collective consciousness. But they didn't seem to grasp it instinctively, and I couldn't use my words or the Force to drive it home to them. Nevertheless, I keep trying, as a way to pay them back for the care they showed me when I was defenseless.

"And I expand my teaching efforts to all the creatures of Dagobah, so that they may not live in fear of the ravages of the dragonsnake. The sleen - long, ground-dwelling lizards - the spotlight sloth, the gnarltrees in which I perched during our battle, the knobby white spiders that issue forth from the gnarltree roots when they wish to reproduce, and the bat-like bogwings that fly above and below the arboreal canopy - all have received my tutelage in how to defeat the dragonsnake, to varying degrees of success. But they all now know the Living Force's ability to turn back the darkness of the dragonsnake's Force powers, keeping them alive as the dragonsnakes starve. True, this means the dragonsnakes may grow hungry and mean before dying out utterly, but that is the price one must pay to eradicate their evil from this planet.

"But Dooku, as I have told you this, I have seen into the deep recesses of your mind. I see your fates, the possible paths your life will take, the threads of destiny that you have tried to hide from me so assiduously. And this is the moment, the choice that will decide your place in posterity. Will you be remembered as a valiant hero who turned from his sinister ways in his last days, or as a long-lived traitor, fated to betray and destroy all that he once held dear?"


	18. Redemption Averted

At that, Sifo-Dyas closed his mind to Darth Tyranus, terminating the Force horror feedback loop that had crippled Tyranus. Tyranus's legs buckled and failed him, leaving him to splash chest-first into the mire. Slowly, painfully, he rose from the muck, even as it dripped from him anew, even as his mental faculties returned to him through the fog of utter exhaustion. Sifo-Dyas looked on him warily.

Tyranus's defiant, baritone growl broke the silence between the two men. "Oh? And just what has your fevered mind divined of my fate?"

Sifo-Dyas simply shook his head before replying. "I call you Dooku because I still sense the good in you. I can see how you can turn back from the ways of the Sith, how you can reclaim your Jedi heritage.

"But it will not be an easy road, and it will..."

Dooku testily interrupted. "Save your righteous prattle, Jedi. I will not have you attempt to 'save' me so that I can rejoin the decadent Jedi order and serve a tottering Republic. My destiny lies on a path toward remaking the galaxy's ponderous bureaucracy into an ordered, efficient, and responsive machine, servile to my will."

"That is one path before you, yes. But to follow it, you would have to fail in the mission that sent you here."

Tyranus cocked a quizzical eyebrow. "How so?"

"We have battled back and forth, trading blows with both lightsabers and the Force. If we kept up our fight, you might find an opening and exploit it, striking me down for your Master. But if you do that, you will never forgive yourself."

Tyranus glanced askance at Sifo-Dyas. "I hardly believe I would need to forgive myself for ridding myself of the last reminder of what I used to be."

"Perhaps in time, that would be true. Given another five or so years of deadening your soul with the bludgeon of Sith teachings, you very well might be dead enough to yourself that you would be capable of such a deed without remorse. But your Master has not driven your humanity from you fully yet. More than a sliver of your old compassion remains in you, no matter how fervently you attempt to bury it.

"And because you are not yet inured to those feelings that the Sith consider 'weak,' my death would not have the effect you intend. Instead of ridding you of the last nettle on your conscience, it would solidify it. My death would become the grain of sand that your ruminative mind would coat over into a pearl of remorse and regret. And a beautiful pearl it would be to me, indeed, as it would force you to renounce your Sith ways when your Master makes one too many demands upon your nascent cruelty.

"You would rise up against Sidious and put up a noble fight against him, valiantly exposing his corruption of the Senate in the face of an unbelieving Jedi Council. Though your actions would lead Sidious to strike you down personally, the Jedi would finally be awakened from their slumber and would confront the Chancellor once and for all. The Jedi would lose a measure of prestige in the public's eye for their seemingly unprovoked aggression against the leader of the Republic, but the furor would be short-lived as the details of the conspiracy you would have unearthed became public knowledge, vindicating the Jedi's apparent assassination. And you would be remembered as the hero of the Republic, having sacrificed yourself to bring the dominion of the Sith to light - and to an end."

Tyranus scoffed at these notions. "Oh, such outlandish and romantic fantasies you conjure for me..."

Sifo-Dyas steeled his gaze and voice at Tyranus. "I'm not finished yet.

"Doubtless, you envision the future that results from your arrogant defiance of your Master, returning empty-handed from Dagobah and confronting your Master with your willfulness. You may even apply some of the techniques you learned here to force your Master into a stalemate. Your Master will respect your skills all the more, but he will become more wary of you, and will divorce himself from you. Both of you will work against each other behind the scenes politically - him in his role as Supreme Chancellor, you in your newfound role as the Senator from Serenno.

"Eventually, your Master will confront you. But this time, the confrontation will happen diplomatically on the Senate floor, and you will have behind you the full weight of the forces you two propose to array against the Republic. The Chancellor will have a vote of no-confidence leveraged against him, a vote your puppets in the Senate will orchestrate to avoid a costly, all-out civil war. And thus will you use your mentor's favorite political machinations against him, ousting him from his office to secure for yourself.

"Broken, Palpatine will duel with you in the Chancellor's office to repay your treachery. You will fight each other to a stalemate again - a fatal one. You will impale him through the heart, and he will sever your head from your body. Again, you will be regaled as a hero of the Republic, albeit posthumously.

"Either way, you die. And the ways of the Sith will die with you for a very long time."

Tyranus could do nothing but stare, broken at the erstwhile Jedi Master's hands. How could he have known? The competing visions that had bedeviled him for years, the futures he had suppressed from his Master's most intrusive mental probes - all laid bare, plain, obvious. The things he had struggled to block from his own consciousness, lest they deter him from pursuing his monomaniacal ambitions - forced to his consciousness, repeated to him, and followed through to their logical conclusions. For him, the way of the Force was but a cruel farce.

Sifo-Dyas gave his former friend a compassionate glance. "Apparently, your Unifying Force _is_ good for something, after all. As much as I had complained that it seemed to do nothing in the moment, I now see how its revelations about the past and the future can influence your actions strongly.

"And by touching your understanding of it, I believe I have a third way for you to follow. One that will let you live a long life, albeit one that I would not ordinarily condone. You will still die at the hands of a Sith, but your years will be prolonged, and I will not have to suffer your loss until I have more strength to bear it.

"As much as I detest what you have become, the path to which you have apprenticed yourself, after touching your mind, I now recall the nobility and the strength you gave to the Jedi Order for so many years. I remember the support you gave me in my darkest hours, and how your sage counsel saved many a Padawan from falling prey to their passions."

Sifo-Dyas walked toward the felled tree by the bog, breaking off a branch with his bare hand. The sharpness of the bark made his palm bleed profusely, and he winced as he pressed his lightsaber into his bloodied hand. Then he tossed the lightsaber at Tyranus's prostrate feet. It made a marshy splash as it landed.

"Take this to your master. I have no further need of it - my strength with the Force now allows me to fight any adversaries that come my way. And I have seen how it will save your life. The blood on the hilt will convince your master that my body was lost to one of the myriad creatures of the bog."

Sifo-Dyas paused for what felt like hours. His eyes regarded Tyranus with alterate looks of pity, contempt, and nostalgia. Tyranus looked back at Sifo-Dyas, absorbing his gazes with increasingly pained expressions. Finally, Sifo-Dyas found the answers he was looking for written on Tyranus's face. The Jedi Master turned abruptly on his his heels and spoke his parting words to the wind.

"Now, depart from me, Lord Tyranus."

And with that, Sifo-Dyas strode away from the fallen tree, from the depths of the bog, and from the wracked body of Lord Tyranus. The form of the Master of the Light faded into the mists of Dagobah, leaving Tyranus to struggle to his feet - and to regain his composure. Amid the calls and cries of the Dagobah wildlife, he straggled back to his ship, thoroughly covered in that world's grime, the ruddied lightsaber of Sifo-Dyas clutched tightly in his hand.


	19. Epilog

EPILOG

"As you requested, Master: his lightsaber."

"And with his genetic material splashed over it. An excellent find."

"Did the analyses reveal it to be of sufficient quality to permit its use in the cloning process?"

"Yes. Take the lightsaber to Kamino. Have the cloners begin the quadruple-speed experiment. The donor's Force sensitivity should aid their work immensely. All we require is his body; all the better for us if his mind be left vacant."

"Indeed, my Lord. His blood will serve many a purpose for us in the coming storm."

"Quite so, Lord Tyranus. Quite so."

* * *

_Ten years later..._

As the fires of the Clone Wars spread throughout the galaxy, the last member of a rogue sect of Jedi from Bpfassh splashed his pod into the turgid waters of Dagobah. He clambered up the side of the pod as its hatch opened, letting the swamp into its depths and swallow it. The Dark Jedi reached the tip of the pod while the waters ravaged the delicate electronics of the pod, sizzling and snapping them to impotence.

Just before the last vestige of the pod's hull disappeared beneath the bog's surface, the Dark Jedi made a heroic leap from the middle of the water to its banks may meters away. Amid the surprised protests of the myriad denizens of the teeming world, his footfalls quickened as he fled toward the nearest glade of gnarltrees.

Long after his form disappeared into the ground-hugging murk, a slight thud reverberated throughout the foggy cover, barely distorted by the cries of the wildlife.

A second pod then touched down gently on the bank onto which the Dark Jedi had alighted. The pod's door descended gently to the marshy surface, and a wizened, green form waddled down to the planet's squishy surface. His gaze surveyed the scene intently, his head slowly swiveling to take in the new sights.

His quarry would not escape him this time.

Gingerly, he ambled toward the nearest vergence in the Force, taking care to tread lightly so that his opponent would not detect his approach. As his gimer stick tapped with each step, his long, pointed ears waggled in the air currents stirred by the beating of millions of wings, seen and unseen.

But it was his eyes that detected the approaching Force sensitive, rather than his own exquisitely tuned Force sense. The nebulous form gradually took shape as it grew larger, revealing a slight stoop to the posture accentuating the aged appearance given by the form's grayed crown and beard. The form's dilapidated robes drooped under years of caked grime; its right hand shaking slightly with an arthritic gimp.

In a husky rasp, it spoke to the interloper. "Master Yoda, I believe I've found the rascal you've been chasing. He shouldn't pose much of a problem, though I'd forgotten how much it hurts when you actually have to make contact with someone's jaw with your fist to stop him."

The eyes of the Jedi Grand Master widened in disbelief, his gimer stick dropping to the ground unheard. "Master Sifo-Dyas?..."


End file.
